Alternative browsers to Safari now on the App Store...

Discussion in 'iOS Apps' started by BrettArchibald, Jan 14, 2009.

  1. BrettArchibald

    BrettArchibald Well-Known Member

    Jul 17, 2008
    1,436
    18
    38
    Male
    Self-employed interactive designer.
    Formerly Zimbabwe - now England.
    #1 BrettArchibald, Jan 14, 2009
    Last edited: Jan 14, 2009
    Dunno if this is old news, but I just read about it now...

    <Copied and pasted>

    Out of all those, WebMate:Tabbed Browser would appear to be the most useful. I can't begin to describe how frustrating it is to browse the TouchArcade forums on the iPhone, starting on the main list, going forwards to the link/post, then back to the list, waiting for the page to re-load, finding the next link, clicking... forwards, backwards, forwards, backwards, re-load, re-load, re-load... AAAAARGH!!! :mad:

    Incognito is only slightly interesting, as it doesn't really do anything that Safari can't already do by just choosing to manually clear your history.

    Shaking Web on the hand just looks like a complete waste of time...

    None of these browsers mention though whether they support the ability to NOT auto-rotate into landscape mode when the iPhone is turned sideways. If any of these browsers could do that, then I'd buy it, because trying to browse the web on the iPhone while lying down is a frustrating experience...
    I would email them and ask them this basic question, but not a single one of those three developers has listed any contact details on their websites...!?!?!
     
  2. menom

    menom Well-Known Member

    Nov 21, 2008
    218
    0
    0
    photography
    London, UK.
    Interesting - thanks for the info Brett. I'd noticed the Tabbed Browser appearance and thought it odd that another browser would be launched - forgot they were banned for duplicating functionality.

    Do these new browsers incorporate flash players? Or is that still a no-no for Apple? I'll have to check them out and see

    that's prob the only way I'd use a 3rd party app - and even then only occasionally - as a high percentage flash-based stuff on the web is for tedious ads

    Maybe Apple allowed these apps to counter the UK advertising judgement that said that Apple couldn't claim to have access to the full web on the iPhone as you couldn't view flash-based pages?
     
  3. BrettArchibald

    BrettArchibald Well-Known Member

    Jul 17, 2008
    1,436
    18
    38
    Male
    Self-employed interactive designer.
    Formerly Zimbabwe - now England.
    #3 BrettArchibald, Jan 14, 2009
    Last edited: Jan 14, 2009
    I can pretty much guarantee you 100% that these browsers do not support the Flash plug-in (unfortunately), as that's not something for them to decide to implement, but rather it's up to Adobe.
    And if Adobe had released the Flash plug-in for the iPhone, I think the whole internet would be alight with the news already...

    For me, the biggest problem with Safari for the iPhone is the lack of tabs, or "open link in new window" option. And the damn "forced-reload" of a page when you hit the back button...
    Webmate would appear to remedy this nicely...
     
  4. iGewappnet

    iGewappnet Well-Known Member

    Nov 17, 2008
    314
    0
    0
    Mainz, Germany
    These are no new browsers. All the apps just use Safari and wrap a new interface around it. Actually this is not that new, apps like Caravan and TextGuru do this already to enable downloading of web content.

    So no sign of any real alternative browser like Firefox Mobile or Opera Mini.
     
  5. menom

    menom Well-Known Member

    Nov 21, 2008
    218
    0
    0
    photography
    London, UK.
    ahh - right - should've guessed although I was surprised even that stand-alone browsers arrived without much fanfare

    Hmm - that's true - in fact it seems that Safari just cache's less now than it used to in the pre 2.0 OS days

    If (as iGewappnet suggests) these are just shells based on Safari - maybe there should be option in prefs to set cache / memory allocation higher than the default - if you want the phone optimised for web browsing - as it seems possible to cache more than it does by default
     
  6. dcescott

    dcescott Well-Known Member

    Dec 22, 2008
    90
    1
    6
    I'm hoping for a FF or at least a Chrome app from Google. Something that handles flash please. I think that is my biggest complaint. I don't mind Safari, but I don't use it as much on my laptop. I am thankful for the push email, keeps me off my other computer more :)
     
  7. morscata12

    morscata12 Well-Known Member

    Oct 23, 2008
    103
    0
    16
    Is there any security risk in using these browsers over Safari? If the browsers are allowed to send user info (browsing history, passwords, etc) back to their parent servers, I wouldn't feel comfortable using anything other than the default Safari.
     
  8. brewstermax

    brewstermax Well-Known Member

    But see, I have found that if you hold you finger on a link and then swipe right, it usually opens in a new tab. I wait until the link black box pops up, and it works about 75%of the time.
     
  9. iGewappnet

    iGewappnet Well-Known Member

    Nov 17, 2008
    314
    0
    0
    Mainz, Germany
    Of course there is never a 100% security, but in this case the risk is not so big. As I said, these are no other browsers, it IS just the default Safari in new clothes.
     
  10. Paulio

    Paulio Well-Known Member

    Dec 3, 2008
    775
    22
    18
    Local IGA (supermarket)
    Tasmania, Australia
    Safari on iDevice's isn't 100% safe (of course, like you said) but I was once getting a keygen off a site (I know, evil) and it wiped my DNS and disconnected me from the network. I had to restart my router to get it to go again. Stopped going on anything connected to it! What a dodgy site, imagine navigating to it on a PC!
     
  11. dougpr

    dougpr New Member

    Jan 15, 2009
    1
    0
    0
    http://www.ipuhelin.com/en/safariplus/

    I used this to add some safari functionality. I took their links and made a new folder in my bookmarks called "browser tools".

    Some of the key ones for me are the "open links in new window" and "scroll to end" tools.
     
  12. lfsnz67

    lfsnz67 Member

    Jan 15, 2009
    5
    0
    0
    Love this forum, it's fantastic, and I hate complaining on my first post, but this being an iPhone website, why isn't there a mobile mode for browsing until we get a better mobile browser on the iPhone?
     
  13. Hitman45

    Hitman45 Well-Known Member

    Sep 29, 2008
    67
    1
    0
    iPhone Gamer
    Williamstown, NJ
    Incognito looks pretty good. The others just look cheaply made. Thanks for posting this.
     
  14. Ph4ntom4

    Ph4ntom4 Well-Known Member

    Jan 10, 2009
    467
    0
    0
    What's wrong with this on iPhone? It scales well and you know where everything is.
     
  15. lfsnz67

    lfsnz67 Member

    Jan 15, 2009
    5
    0
    0
    Perhaps I was too critical, it is better than other sites, but an iPhone skin with large fonts and no horizontal scrolling would be great!
     

Share This Page